Meaning making helps put your illness in context with the rest of your life.

Finding ways to make good out of your suffering can give you peace and purpose.

Suffering and recovering from this illness can help you understand what truly matters in life.

In my early days of recovery, my life and my future could not have looked more meaningless, unfair, and bleak to me. I had overwhelming negative emotions that did nothing but stoke self-pity and foster a negative self-concept based on this sense of ultimate defeat. In my darkest moments, I prayed and said, “If I make it through this, I don’t want all this to be random and meaningless—I want good to come out of it.” I prayed this many times over years, and through endless patience and years spanning over a decade, my prayer and wish came true.

Starting with my first blog post on a NAMI County affiliate website, my goal was simple: I am going to write what I wish I could have read during my early years of recovery. I wanted others suffering in silence, shame, and secrecy due to stigma not to feel alone and to know someone else out there understands how they feel. The goal has always been to offer perspective, as I had no accurate or constructive perspective on my illness or future, didn’t know anyone who had had this illness too, and hadn’t heard of anyone who had recovered from it. I felt that I walked alone in darkness and blindness in those early days, and I want others to have a better experience than I did.

When I write, speak, or engage in outreach to help others, I also assign meaning to why I lost more than a decade of my life and why I had to suffer........

© Psychology Today